Cruisin Weekend A Hot Topic In Ocean City Community; Problems Again Stem From Unofficial Participants

OCEAN CITY — In the calm following a raucous Cruisin weekend, a storm of a different sort was brewing in the resort this week with local residents once again railing against the noise, reckless driving and abuse of the town and officials wrestling with strategic adjustments to the event.

Cruisin hit Ocean City last weekend with around 3,400 classic cars officially registered for the event and an in-kind number of hangers-on, or “wannabes” as the event promoter referred to them this week. While the officially registered participants appeared to be well behaved for the most part and attended the event’s official activities, the latter group raced up and down Coastal Highway and other streets, dumped trash in parking lots and left a considerable amount of rubber on the roads.

Clearly, the spring Cruisin event has become one of the biggest weekends of the year in Ocean City, the biggest according to promoter and organizer Bob Rothermel, bigger even then the Fourth of July. While local residents and business owners bristled at the steady roar of the hot rod engines, they likely didn’t mind the equally steady ringing of cash register drawers.

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